Latest COVID update Jan. 31: Four deaths cap Saskatchewan’s deadliest month yet

Another four people in Saskatchewan have died with COVID, closing off the province’s deadliest month with the virus so far.

With the new deaths, 304 people have lost their lives since the pandemic hit. Of those, 149 were in January.

In a news release Sunday, the Ministry of Health reported that, of the new deaths, one was a person in the 80+ age group from Regina, one was in the 50-59 age group from the northwest region and the other two were in the 60-69 age group, from the far northwest and southeast zones respectively.

New cases slightly outnumbered recoveries. There were 238 new infections and 223 recoveries, bringing the active case total to 2,534.

The cases reported Sunday were in the Saskatoon (82), north-central (19), Regina (26), far northeast (24), northwest (29), southeast (10), far northwest (25), south-central (one), central-east (eight), southwest (one), central-west (one) zones. The hometowns of 12 cases are still being determined.

One previously reported case was assigned to the northwest area.

The seven-day average of daily new cases is 241, or 19.7 cases per 100,000 population.

Since March, there have been 23,834 total COVID cases in our province, along with 21,026 recoveries.

There are 203 people in Saskatchewan hospitals. Of those, there are 31 in intensive care, with 11 in the Regina region, 13 in the Saskatoon area, one in the north-central zone, two in the northwest and four in the central-east.

The province continues to administer vaccine doses, thanks to workers drawing extra doses from the vials.

There were 120 doses given Saturday, raising the total so far to 35,359.

There were also 2,459 tests Saturday, raising that total to 508,638.